10. Chris
Chapter 10
Chris
Now
July 10 th
T he bathroom door opens, and the scent of my body wash wafts into the room. I glance up from my laptop as Annie steps out wearing the same undershirt, sans bra this time, and a pair of my boxers, and immediately forget whatever it was I’d been doing.
She gives me a smug little smile as she towels her hair.
Words catch in my throat, and I force a cough.
Her smile grows into a grin.
“My undies, too?” I ask, crossing my arms and trying to look stern, mostly to distract from my reaction. We’ve shared enough hotel rooms that she knows I sleep in boxers and wear jockey shorts during the day. But they’re still undies.
“It’s too hot for the sweats.”
She’s not wrong. The AC in our cheap hotel room is struggling with the hot, humid July night, and I’m struggling with how much of her body is visible through my thin undershirt. I slam the laptop shut, and while she’s distracted by her hair, I escape into the bathroom.
A cold shower doesn’t help, but I stand under the spray until goosebumps cover my body. I take my time drying off and putting on a clean t-shirt and boxers, brushing my teeth twice as long as usual. My hair is short enough, and I can’t do anything other than run my fingers through it a few times, but I do that. Anything to delay because I’m terrified of what happens or doesn’t happen next.
With a little luck, Annie will be tucked in bed, sound asleep, by the time I come out.
She’s not. She’s sitting cross-legged on her bed with the bottle of expensive emergency tequila, my Bluetooth speaker playing something slow and heavy on a low volume.
I point to the tequila. “I thought I hid that.” I had, inside a piece of PVC pipe capped at both ends and tucked into a tub containing tools. It’s the emergency stash for a reason, though I’d be lying if I hadn’t planned to dip into it tonight after the wedding.
She lifts the bottle to her lips and takes a drink. “I think today calls for it.” She holds the bottle out.
After a moment, I take it. One drink. Enough to commiserate with her, but not enough to make me reckless. It’s an a?ejo tequila that goes down smooth and a little sweet with a hint of caramel.
“Take it easy,” I warn her as I pass the bottle back. “Tomorrow’s going to be a big day. I don’t want you hungover.”
She lifts an eyebrow as she takes another sip.
I drop onto my bed.
She watches me, and I watch her, waiting. The tequila will loosen her tongue, and if I keep my mouth shut, within a minute or two, she’ll tell me why she’s here with me instead of wherever she planned to spend her wedding night with Marc.
Annie jumps to her feet, setting the bottle on the nightstand and grabbing the phone.
My phone.
That’s my playlist she’s playing. “Hey—”
“I only went into your playlists,” she says, scrolling.
I’d prefer she went through my texts or emails. When we’re on the road, she’s in charge of the music—from her phone—precisely because the playlist she’s now searching through is titled “Annie’s Songs” and consists entirely of music I associate with her. Songs she sings along to, songs she puts on repeat, songs that make her smile.
“I need to change my pin,” I grumble. I gave it to her once, on a chase a couple of years ago, when she broke her phone and needed to call her uncle about watering a houseplant or something.
“Don’t change it,” she says.
My pin is 0518 and has been for years.
“The first day we chased together,” she says absently, and I can see the slight smile on her lips as she finds what she’s looking for.
The music changes. A booze-soaked memory prickles my skin. I can taste the lime and salt with the tequila still on my tongue. We danced to this song once in a packed bar. After watching a tornado plow through a town. Trying to forget.
Annie remembers.
“Tell me it’s a coincidence,” she says, the smile gone from her lips when she turns to face me.
I’m hanging on by a thread. “It’s a coincidence.”
“Liar.” She says it softly, affectionately.
“It’s my dog’s birthday.” I’m stretching for anything to get me out of this, to get us back on safe ground.
She snorts as she takes two steps to stand directly before me. “Charlie is not a Taurus.”
“No. She’s not.” I have no idea what I’ve agreed with. I’m trying not to let my eyes wander over her body. The real danger is drowning in her eyes, but the realization comes too late.
Annie holds her hands out. “Dance with me?”
My hands are in hers before my self-control wakes up. When she tugs, I rise to my feet and let her pull me to the end of the bed, where there’s more room.
She turns, one of her hands going to the back of my neck, the other over my wildly pounding heart. I keep my touch light on her waist. We’re cheek to cheek, and I can feel her breath warm on my neck. Her orange blossom and ginger scent is there, under the woodsy fragrance of my body wash and the smooth vanilla of the a?ejo tequila. I breathe it all in.
When we danced like this in the bar after Meadow Springs, she was in leggings and a t-shirt, and I was in jeans and my OU hoodie. But I remember how she felt in my arms. She trembled but held me tight. I remember how hard it was to step back when the song ended.
I don’t want to complicate things, but I can’t step back tonight.
The corner of her lips graze my jaw, and I close my eyes and take a deep breath. An accident? I shouldn’t, but it’s no accident when I turn just enough to brush my lips against her soft cheek.
Her fingers toy with my hair, and her body presses tighter to mine. I might care about my obvious erection if the friction of her hips didn’t feel so good. Her lips skim my neck, her breath stutters, and she kisses me below my ear.
Fuck it. I’m going to make this complicated. I’ll be her excuse for not fixing things with Marc. Or her rebound. Whatever she wants me to be for one night or two or forever. So I tighten my hold on her, nudging my leg between hers, bending to kiss her in the same spot she kissed me.
The noise she makes is a swallowed moan, but she tilts her head, offering me better access to her neck as I pull her up my thigh.
My self-control isn’t strong enough to give her the kind of light kiss she gave me. Not when I need to taste her. I trail slow, open-mouthed kisses down to her throat, and she trembles in my arms.
I am so fucking gone for this woman that one little whimper from her nearly ruins the control I’m barely clinging to. It takes all my strength to lift my lips from her neck and pull back enough to meet her eyes.
They’re dark, full of need, and maybe I’m imagining it. Maybe I’ve wanted to see her look at me like she loves me for so long that I’m seeing something that isn’t there, but I…I…
“Annie—” I don’t know what I’m about to say. Some final Hail Mary attempt at saving us, or a confession to damn us, or nothing at all because she’s already pulling me toward her, gentle and slow, as she rises to meet me.
Somehow, we stop, our lips a breath apart. Her eyes flutter shut, and mine follow. I feel her take a shallow little breath, her nose brushing my cheek, mine brushing hers.
She speaks in a soft, ragged whisper that coasts along my skin. “Tell me you want this.”
I think I say yes. I start to, at least, but I’m also closing the small gap between us, kissing lips I last kissed in a mind-shattering panic. That kiss was never supposed to happen. This kiss is destiny. It burns away eight miserable years of longing and denial, and whatever we are now is something we weren’t before.
Annie makes a soft, needy noise, and when she moves, I follow. We reach her bed, and I lift her. Her legs go around my hips, and I kneel on the mattress, one hand on her ass, one on the back of her neck, lowering us both, never ceasing to kiss her for more than a fraction of a second. Then she’s tightening her legs, pulling me closer as she rocks against me.
Fuck. That one word escapes on a stuttered breath, and the only thing stopping my eyes from rolling back into my head is her insistent tug on my shirt.
I break away long enough to pull it off and drop it to the floor. She’s already pulling me back down. Her hands glide over my chest, shoulders, and back, her touch firm and needy as our hips rock together.
I brush my thumb over her jaw, along her neck and over her collarbone, down over the swell of her breast. Her nipple is hard against my palm, so I run my thumb over it, back and forth, until it grows impossibly taut, and she’s arching into my touch. I can hardly think with the way she’s rocking against my cock. I don’t want her to stop, but I’m dangerously close, so I kiss down her chin, down her neck, following the path my hand took, over the curve of her breast, stopping long enough to suck her nipple through the undershirt’s thin fabric. My cock aches at the loss of contact, and her hips strain like she needs the friction as badly as I do.
I push myself up, sitting back on my feet. Annie’s dark eyes follow me, her gaze hot but vulnerable. I can’t find the words. She’s so beautiful, with dark hair fanned out on the pillow, her cheeks rosy, and her lips swollen. I tug at the hem of the undershirt, and she rises enough to pull it off before settling back down on the pillow.
She’s beautiful. I could stare at her all day, but she reaches for me, and I go to her, bending to suck her dusky pink nipple back into my mouth; no fabric between us now.
Annie gasps and arches and moans my name. I want this sound in my ears all night—every night for the rest of my life. I lick and tease her until her desperation equals mine before I resume my journey south, kissing over the gentle curve of her belly, pulling the boxers she borrowed down her long legs, and settling in between her thighs.
Her legs are shaking. I kiss the inside of one thigh, pulling it over my shoulder, then do the same with the other before I turn my attention to her pussy. I breathe her in, and Christ, she’s perfect. I’m moaning before my tongue even touches her. She gasps when I lick her. Murmurs my name when I flick my tongue over her clit.
I’ve wanted this too long not to take my time learning how to make her breath catch. How to elicit gasps and moans. All of it is a million times better than I imagined. Watching her unravel slowly, her cheeks stained pink as she arches in pleasure, is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
“More,” she whispers. “I need—”
I shift to slip a finger inside her, thrusting slow and steady.
“—that. Oh, fuck…”
She’s so wet. I slip a second finger in. It doesn’t take long to find the spot that makes her gasp and moan. I focus on that and flutter my tongue over her clit the way she likes. Within seconds, her body goes tight. Then she’s coming, crying out and clenching around my fingers. She’s even prettier when she comes.
When she stills with a happy sigh, I slip my fingers free and wipe my face on the back of my arm.
“Come here.” Her whisper is lazy and satisfied, but I’m already working my way back up her body, planting kisses on her sweat-dampened skin as I go. Her legs go back around my hips, and she pulls me to her, and I can feel the warm wet of her through my boxers. I groan into her neck.
“I need you,” she whispers, pushing a foil packet into my hand.
I glance at the condom. “Where did you—”
“They’re yours, from your bag.”
She planned this. The tequila. The dance. The condom hidden under her pillow. I don’t know what it means, but there’s no space in my head to think about it, not with her lips on my neck and her hands slipping down to the waistband of my boxers. I’ve been ignoring my own aching need, and when she slips one hand inside my boxers and gently strokes my length, I can’t ignore it anymore.
“I need you,” Annie whispers.
That’s all I need to hear. I climb out of bed, slip out of the boxers, and roll the condom down my length, all in a daze I don’t snap out of until I settle back on top of her and gently push into her. She stares up at me with eyes full of emotion, like she’s wanted this as long as I have.
She wraps her legs around me, pulling me in deeper, her hands on my face, my neck, my shoulders. When I’m fully buried inside her, I pause and bend to kiss her. She clings to me, her body already moving, and there’s a desperate taste in her kiss.
“Shh,” I whisper against her lips, even though she hasn’t said anything. But I can’t say the words slow down because they’ll come out I love you .
I want to stretch every second of this out for an eternity. I want this slow enough to feel every heartbeat and the moments in between.
Maybe she understands. She nods, and when she pulls me back into a kiss, she’s with me now, ready to take it slow.
Each grinding thrust into her is a wonder. She moves like a dance, meeting me halfway, sating my need only to deepen it in the next heartbeat. I hope she feels the same fundamental shift inside her that I do because fuck, it’s never felt like this with anyone else.
I love her so goddamn much.
Annie murmurs my name, and our slow, decadent pace can’t last. I want it to, but my hips are moving faster now, making her little gasps come quicker. The room fills with the sounds of our bodies coming together. Sweat breaks out on my brow as I try to hold off and make this last. I don’t want it to end. I need her to come again more than I need release, so I slip a hand between us, circling her clit with my thumb.
Her head tips back, and she cries out, her body tightening, pulsing around my cock. I can’t stop the inevitable. I tumble and fall, and there’s nothing but a bliss so blindingly bright it washes over everything, spilling so hot and hard I lose all sense of awareness of everything except Annie’s arms coming around me, holding me tight as I gasp into her neck chasing every ounce of pleasure until I can’t. Until neither of us can move.
Reality slowly returns, and I realize I’m draped across her, my entire body limp, crushing her into the mattress. The little circles she’s drawing with her finger on the back of my shoulder make me think she doesn’t mind. I don’t want to, but I push myself up. I feel empty when I slide out of her. She’s watching me, a little sliver of concern in her eyes, but I can’t say anything without saying everything, so I go to the bathroom to dispose of the condom. When I come out, Annie, dressed again, goes in.
I pull on my discarded boxers, turn off the music still playing low over the speaker, and climb into my bed, scrubbing a hand over my face. I smell like Annie, and it pulls at my heart because I want her scent on me forever, and I don’t know what happens next. If this means anything to her.
She won’t want to talk about it, not tonight, and to be honest, I don’t want to now, either. I want to cling to the afterglow, to the delusion that she feels even a fraction of what I feel, for a little longer.
Annie returns from the bathroom, frowning when she sees me in my bed instead of hers, but her frown disappears when I pat the spot next to me. She climbs in and turns off the light, settling with her back to me, but then she reaches behind her, grabs my arm, and pulls it around her, wiggling back until we’re pressed together. I kiss her neck. She kisses my hand—a little wordless goodnight.
Annie falls asleep first. I fight the pull on my eyelids, not wanting to miss a moment, but sleep takes me anyway.